I have a Dell Precision server with a PCIe FX100 KVM Host card installed (manufacturer is Teradici but it's rebranded as a Dell solution.)

I am not using this card (it's installed in the machine but not externally connected to anything), but I believe it's still overriding the onboard audio to be the default and only audio output. As such, the audio from the server is being routed to the KVM card. I do not want this to happen as I have speakers connected to the audio out jack.

Under System -> Preferences -> Sound, the only thing listed is "HDA Teradici", which is the KVM card.

According to the server's manual, the onboard audio is supposed to be "an integrated two-chip audio solution comprised of Sigmatel’s STAC9200 High Definition Audio CODEC and the ESB2’s integrated AC97/High Definition digital controller". However, it looks like the onboard sound has been disabled by the KVM card.

The only entry in /dev/snd/ is pci-0000:02:00.1, which is the audio interface on the KVM card (see lspci output below).

Where can I select to use the onboard audio instead of the KVM card?

If that's not possible, is it possible to disable the PCIe KVM card somehow? This is a remote machine so I'm not able to physically remove the card.

I would also appreciate any troubleshooting steps to point me in the right direction for where this card may be overriding things, any relevant logs, etc.

It could also be that the onboard audio is disabled in the BIOS, but I don't think this is the case, and as I can only access the machine remotely, it's difficult to test this.
–
jozzasMay 16 '12 at 4:55

2

I had the same problem as you, and it was a BIOS problem. When I went into the BIOS, I was able to re-enable the integrated audio and everything worked as normal.
–
John FarrellyFeb 22 '13 at 17:11

3 Answers
3

I had the KVM card removed from the server and the onboard audio was automatically detected. This card obviously isn't very well supported by the manufacturer in Ubuntu, so for anyone coming across this, I would suggest you go with an external KVM solution that isn't tied to your specific server hardware.

You should check in the BIOS on the server to make sure onboard audio is enabled. The Teradici card presents itself as an audio device which may trigger the BIOS to disable the onboard audio. You should be able to override this.

This is the first thing I should have done, but the server is in a very difficult to access location and there is no out-of-band management setup on this particular server, so I can't get at the BIOS. OOBM is definitely a requirement for similar applications in the future.
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jozzasJun 20 '13 at 22:28